Blogging By Cinema-light

Friday, January 17, 2025

Here (2024)

Here...But Not Really There

"Time Sure Does Fly, Doesn't It?" ("And Then I Blink...")

I kept thinking of Robert De Niro in The Deer Hunter while watching Here, the latest film by director Robert Zemeckis.

"One shot." "One shot."

Which is what Here is. Based on a graphic novel* (by Richard McGuire, which is done the same way), the film eliminates the one major creative decision for a director—"where do I put the camera?"—and takes it, literally, out of the picture. Zemeckis, as a director, is a weird cat. Where a lot of directors will look for thematic material and then build the technical aspects around it, Mr. Z seems to think of the technical challenge first and then find the story to fit it. He was ground-breaking in making mo-cap animation films and as the Uncanny Valley started to get flooded with product so that nobody could see it any more, he started to trust the CGI with drama. It can be done. But, as amazing as Zemeckis' films can look, they sometimes have the heart of a demonstration disc. Inspiration but not aspiration.

So, here's Here. And, technologically, it is pretty amazing, but for reasons that have nothing to do with story-line (except in some nicely worked-out places) or the fact that it re-teams Tom Hanks and Robin Wright nostalgically from Forrest Gump. They are basically irrelevant other than box-office draw (frankly, I was more intrigued to see Kelly Reilly—from "Yellowstone" and the Downey Jr. "Sherlock" movies—and Michelle Dockery—from "Downton Abbey"—in it. It's not a movie where you can judge performances, scattered as they are in this movie's timeline.

And the incidences feel like snap-shots—or worse, like "Saturday Night Live" skits—they pop up, do a bit of business and generally exit on a laugh or a dramatic hit ("And...scene"). God forbid that they should interrupt one of those slices-of-life in mid-chaos and have it resolve later in the story. That would have felt random, instead of calcified and calculated as this movie too-often feels like.

It starts out with its gambit efficiently enough—that one angle—whether it's in a house on that particular parcel of real estate or in its origins as primordial ooze when the boxes start fading in, initially with subtle borders around them until we get the knack of it and then those borders start fading away and they begin to make transitions so we see the neighborhood go from dinosaur stomping ground to hellish landscape to ice age (only one of two times when the camera actually moves) to Native American habitat to the neighborhood of William Franklin (Benjamin's ever-loyal-to-the-king non-rebellious son) to the story-heavy 20th century.

The Franklins' eventual neighbors are The Harters (he's excited that an "aerodrome" will be built nearby and intends to fly—something his wife is dead-set against); there's the bohemian Beekmans, she's a free-spirit and he's an inventor, perfecting a chair he calls the "Relaxo-boy"; post WWII, the non-surnamed folks we'll spend most of the time with (let's call them "The Gumps") move in, sail through the 50's and television, raise Tom Hanks, who gets his girlfriend Robin Wright pregnant, they get married and move in with the folks and eventually age out of the house; then we get the Harris', the only minority couple—besides the Native Americans—that reside there. We get nudged a lot about how things change—the Harris' give their son "The Talk"—and not—frailty and death are inevitable, as apparently is influenza.

For the most part, these folks are chess-pieces that get moved around depending where the boxes show up and those boxes highlight the transitions between entertainment systems, gas-lights to electric, rugs versus hardwood (versus verdant forest), couches to sectionals. Art changes, but the view rarely does. Dramatically, the film underwhelms except in some key places. But, it's not a waste of time...or space. Not at all.

We are used to being manipulated in movies by mise-en-scene and blocking. Directors let us see what they want us to see and use blocking to change the focus of our attention. This gives us the illusion that we're peeping through a letter-boxed slot-view a 360° world-view (we're not, of course; it's an illusion). Here subverts that. We are given one angle to look at—the world may change within it, but it's basically that one section of cinema real-estate, like we're looking at the Closed Circuit Camera of Eternity.

That's where McGuire's boxes come in. Yes, blocking will direct the eye, but it's those moving boxes and their shifting perspectives through time (but not space) that directs your attention, whether it's what's on the television screen, or the silhouette of the car (or buggy) going by the window. Transitions flash in the wink of an electrical storm or a camera flash. Things shift, warp, grow their hair out and stoop but only for a moment of time. If only to have The Beatles on Ed Sullivan accompany the wedding shot (see below).

And—as with McGuire's work—that's the point it's making. Life seems long. But, in the scope of things, it's transitory, gone in the blink of an eye. And that little plot of space we inhabit will still be there, long after the seas rise, the epidemics cull us, idiots atomize us, and we're just dust. Like George Carlin said "Earth Day?! The Earth will be FINE! WE'RE screwed!" Enjoy the details, the movie seems to tell us. We're just passing through.

A couple of shots—little clever instances I liked. The one below, which is the only time we see the rest of the main floor courtesy of a moved bureau.

And this one haunts (and pays a little respect to the McGuire work): while Paul Bettany's "Dad" sleeps on the couch, a box appears to show an earlier version of his long-since-passed wife (Reilly) and she says the first words of McGuire's graphic novel: "Hmm. Now why did I come in here again?" That raised goose-bumps.

It's an interesting experiment for a movie that somebody might come up with a dramatic reason to exploit. But, the point's been made. Like the guy who invents the La-Z-Boy you have to ask yourself—what's it good for?

* McGuire's work is so seminal and so tied to the film's strategy—and expanded to different platforms—that the Zemeckis film is almost unnecessary. It started out in 1989 as a 6 page story in Raw Volume 2 #1:

The original's time-frame is from 500,957,406,073 BC to 2033 AD

In 1991, the story was adapted into a student film by Timothy Masick and Bill Trainor, students at RIT's Department of Film and Video.

In 2014, McGuire expanded "Here" into a 304-page graphic novel with vector art and watercolors and extending the timeline from 3,000,500,000 B.C. to A.D. 22,175:

That would be a herculean jump enough, but the Ebook addition of "Here" allowed you to scroll between pages with animated gifs inserted. Which is mind-blowing enough, but at the 2020 Venice Film Festival, a VR version of it was presented.

See what I mean about the 2024 movie being "unnecessary"—it feels like, artistically and technologically, we've already moved beyond it.

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

Daddio

I will—sporadically (which is all I ever do)—be filling in gaps of movies I wanted to see, or felt I should see in the past year, but for one reason or another passed on the opportunity (which was usually a short window of availability) for some reason.

All's Fare

It took a while, but she looked in the mirror
Then she glanced at the license for my name
A smile seemed to come to her slowly
It was a sad smile just the same

Daddio (Christy Hall, 2023) This is one where, when I described the movie ("The whole movie takes place during a cab-drive from JFK airport to mid-town Manhattan and it's starring Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn") got the response: "That sound like Hell."

Still...Johnson's choices (outside anything with the words "Shades" and "Web" in the title) have been at least interesting—and she produced this one—and that it managed to coax a disgruntled Penn out of self-imposed retirement says something about the material. Sometimes, the risk of going to Hell is worth it. Daddio, although it won't be to everybody's taste, was certainly worth the risk...especially as it's nested itself in Netflix for awhile. I've been ignoring Netflix—and it's time to sharpen my algorithm and cull the "My List."

Girl (Johnson) disembarks a flight from Oklahoma home to New York. Gets a random cab—the last fare of the night for Clark (Penn) who's been doing this for twenty years and "knows people." It's a flat fare from JFK so he's not running the meter and after some pleasantries and some business ("44th and 9th street—"Good ol' Mid-town"), they settle in for the trip. Music? No. She notices in its absence that he likes to drum his fingers on the steering wheel to some unheard tune. He notices she's not glued to her phone ("It's nice...") and gives her points for that—although her phone is parked on a texting conversation with her "boyfriend" and is never too out of reach. It's Clark's ("I'd prefer to be a 'Vinnie'") last call, so he's relaxed—and doesn't give a shit about his salty language—and in a mood to talk.

After some pleasantries—"You can handle yourself""How could you possibly know that?""It ain't that difficult to read people.You gave me cross-streets, instead of some recited address from your phone n' I can tell you're not concerned with the meter 'cause JFK's a flat-rate") The lack of screen-time leads to a discussion of people in bubbles of technology and how the tipping situation is screwy (and detrimental to the server) now, less casual and random and he finds out she's a coder—isn't that a coincidence—and he asks if that's a tough line for a women to crack and endure (yeah, it always is) and then just (out of curiosity—"I can't be a know-it-all if I don't known nuttin'") says although he uses all this stuff, he doesn't "get" it. She does, so what's it all about. It's just 1's and 0's endlessly—either "on" or "off" or "true" of "false" in an atomization of language and command and instruction. Clark applies that to foundations—we start answering "yes/no" questions just to navigate daily life.

Given that context, Clark is always "on". With no music to fill the void, he's the music (with intermittent drum-solos), talking, espousing, bloviating—he's been around, he's done things, but not so much that he's using it for memory-fodder so much as context and learning material. He's good where he is, but he's as good a listener as he is a talker, and their back-and-forth turns into a teasing competition of who's got the advantage (with no winners or losers and no reward).

But, she keeps looking at her phone and that text-string. Her man-friend wants to hook up—she JUST got off a plane!—but, he keeps pushing it. He wants sex; she just wants to get home. And her expression changes so much that even looking through the rear-view mirror, Clark picks up on it. "What's his name?" Clark asks. "I'm not going to tell you THAT!" she says. "He's married" Clark deduces. She's silent, trying to not give anything away. "Yes...." she says, and the discussion turns to that. "You didn't say the "L" word to him, didja?"

Of course, she did. And then Clark is off, a long discussion about men, women, class, manipulation...and the crux of the matter, how people hide. How they put up a mask, how they put up a presentation ("The suit, the house, the car..."), and how, nowadays, "lookin' like a family man is more important than being one." Clark is more than a trip from the airport to Mid-town, he's a trip through time. He's been doing this for twenty years. The city has changed incrementally, but he hasn't, and people—they change a lot, but not really. And he's seen it all. And driven through it. He's not about giving advice, really, but, his observations make her think...and as it's a flat fare, it's less expensive than an hour of therapy.

And unlike her boy-friend, they're both open and frank (it's New York!) and not putting on airs—they're not going to see each other again, so there's no future consequences or repercussions, so they're frank with each other—not unguarded, but open. They're driving through a judgement-free zone, and traffic's not good. But the conversation has no pileups, and everybody knows how to merge.

It's two people in a cab for a whole movie; the cast has to be good for the movie to be work and Christy Hall, through the good luck of her writing a knock-out script (it started as a play and ended up on The Black List), got Dakota Johnson and her production company involved and Johnson's dream-casting for Clark was Penn. Good instincts all around.

The two of them do more things with glances through rear-view mirrors than most actors could achieve nose-to-nose (Penn rehearsed with Johnson working with a rear-view mirror, supposedly). Body language is minimal, but when it happens it has an out-sized effect. Penn is mercurial, but relaxed with all the possibilities. And his eyes, man, they have their own-sub-text. Johnson has the breadth that she can look like she's aged twenty years with a passing thought and shifts conversationally fast and fresh. And the two riffing off each other is like watching the deftness of Tracy and Hepburn, they're that good together. And you totally buy that they're in a cab making their way down the Van Wyck Expressway.

Except...they aren't. Yeah, there was some location shooting and you see shots of a cab driving down streets just for some perspective now and again, so you can stretch your legs. But, the whole thing was shot in a studio surrounded by LED screens surrounding the cab-set...and it's amazing. Shot by Phedon Papamichael (who's been shooting for Clooney and Mangold and Alexander Payne), nobody's had so much fun playing with the kaleidoscope of traffic lights since Scorsese's Taxi Driver.

Yeah, so first-time director/first film-project. Shot in 16 days. Physically-limiting/imaginatively-challenging staging. It does sound like Hell. But, it works so great and the actors are so riveting, nothing else matters. Maybe you get your sensitivities tweaked a little bit, but the journey's worth it...and there are seat-belts for the squeamish. Ya won't need an air-bag.

And the cab-ride? What can I say, they made good time.

Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Last Chance Harvey

Most of this was written at the time of the film's release. I saw this in a theater because the cast was so good, how could I not?

Last Chance Harvey (Joel Hopkins, 2008) Consigned to forgotten corners of the internet amid the dark alleys of the streaming services, this amiable and genial little semi-romantic semi-comedy boasts a fine casting of plucky players trying to make more of it than it is. Maybe it's only on the lists of those completists who want to see every single movie that Dustin Hoffman or Emma Thompson starred in (and certainly those are good goals), but I would be surprised if anybody had ever heard of this movie, which seems a shame. You read the reviews and practically everyone says is that Hoffman and Thompson are magical together, and if it was just them...the movie would be amazing.

The titular Harvey Shine (Dustin Hoffman) is a musician working for ad agencies writing commercial jingles, but he's always wanted to be a jazz pianist. He's been hired to write yet another innocuous ear-worm, but he's on his way to London for his estranged daughter's wedding (he at least feels the absolute need to be there). He's told, rather cruelly by his boss (Richard Schiff) to take his time, enjoy himself...because he won't have a job when he gets back.

Hey...Mazel tov!

Add to that, his estrangement from his family (his ex-wife, played by Kathy Baker, is now married to James Brolin's character) his awkwardness with social situations in general, and that dear daughter wants her step-dad to give her away, Shine is having a very bad time of it. He spends the wedding at the back of the church (at least he's there), but he's determined to skip the reception and just slink home, until he finds his flight delayed with a long layover. Only thing to do is hit the bar, and once there, he has a strained conversation with Kate Walker (Emma Thompson, always exactly right), an airline worker he previously had blown off while she was just doing her job.

She wouldn't be there if a connection didn't happen...not merely back to the U.S., but between the two characters...and as I said it's amiable and genial and you probably already know where it is heading. Hoffman is such an adept spur-of-the-moment actor and Thompson is such a quick wit and sharp writer that it's like seeing your two best friends spark off each other and say what you will about the rest of it, but that is a joy.

There is a complication or two of the An Affair to Remember variety—don't worry, no one gets hit by a bus—and we get to witness what may be the longest wedding reception in history. The slight story-line is fleshed out with Kate's eccentric mother (the wonderful Eileen Atkins) who thinks that there's a Rear Window-style murderer living next door. Hilarity ensues.

Still, you could do worse than this one to kill a little time, especially with such a good cast.

Sunday, January 12, 2025

Don't Make a Scene: My Darling Clementine

The Story: One of the wonders of director John Ford's work is how he could combine comedy and drama and do it very quickly. This has brought some critical sniffing from academics complaining of his "tonal shifts"—as if drama couldn't have some ironic levity to it—and that one would undermine the other. Such a thing (goes the thinking) is indicative of "low-brow" entertainment.

I rather think the opposite.

Take this scene from My Darling Clementine (what some have argued is Ford's greatest western—I don't agree but it's right "up there"): moments after a rollicking, boisterously chaotic scene where Tombstone's citizenry is about to lynch the town's opera-house owner for not producing the Shakespearean actor that was promised ("Bird imitators! Bird imitators! That's all we get!" "Marshal, be reasonable! All we want to do is to ride him around town a couple of times on the rail!")to a haunting scene where the film's personification of doom—Doc Holliday—completes Hamlet's soliloquy when that previously mentioned Shakespearean thesp' has trouble stage-treading "the undiscoverd' country" portion. Talk about "tonal shift"—from the senselessly raucous rubism of frontier justice to the contemplation of death and its place in the lives of its characters and its near occasion within a hand's reach.

Of course, Doc Holliday does the recitation. And does it...by heart. He's medically-trained, college-educated. He knows his "Hamlet". But, he also knows of that section and has probably contemplated it, seeing has he's got one foot in the grave already—he's come to the dry-air of Tombstone because of the TB that's eating away at his lungs. And the same fatalism that makes him quick on the draw (in cards or confrontation) shadows his very existence. Ford treats him like Death itself, dressing him darkly, keeping him in shadow, and, here, reciting Shakespeare's contemplation of action versus inaction versus consequences, reciting the darker part of the speech, choking on the "conscience doth make cowards of us all." Doc has a conscience of death more than any of them. No wonder he chokes on the words. It's a harbinger of things to come.

But, given how the scene plays out ("Exeunt 'Doc'"), it is pretty sure that neither Wyatt or Old Man Clanton have ever read "Hamlet". They don't have time for indecision...or use for it.

And death? That'll happen to other people.

The Set-up: Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda), with his brothers, have settled in the town of Tombstone, Arizona, after their youngest brother James has been killed by rustlers, suspected to be the gang run by Old Man Clanton (Walter Brennan). Now Wyatt is Marshall of the frontier town, trying to keep the peace, even with such notorious residents as the gambler and gun-fighter "Doc" Holliday (Victor Mature). Earp and Holliday become allies, and one night—after "Doc" has had a particularly hazardous shave—go out on the town. But, Wyatt's "job" is never too far away.

Action!

[Fanfare]

OPERA HOUSE OWNER: [Clears Throat] Ladies!

[Women Cheering]

OPERA HOUSE OWNER: - And gentlemen! -

[Men Cheering]

OPERA HOUSE OWNER: Owing to circumstances that I had nothing to do with!

OPERA HOUSE OWNER: The show, The Convict's Oath, will not appear tonight!

[Crowd Jeering]

OPERA HOUSE OWNER: But...

OPERA HOUSE OWNER: as if I didn't already have enough trouble! That eminent actor, that sterling tragedian!

OPERA HOUSE OWNER: Mr Granville...

CROWD: Thorndyke!

OPERA HOUSE OWNER: Has completely disappeared!

[Yelling, Jeering]

WYATT EARP: Wait a minute! What are you acting so mad about?

PATRON 1: Why, this is the fourth time this year this has happened, Marshal!

TOWNSMAN 1: Bird imitators! Bird imitators, that's all we get! -

OPERA HOUSE OWNER: Gentlemen, I can explain! -

WYATT: What are you fixin' to do about it?

TOWNSMAN 2: Marshal, be reasonable! All we want to do is to ride him around town a couple of times on the rail! -

[Crowd Agreeing]

WYATT: Well, that sounds reasonable enough to me!

OPERA HOUSE OWNER: Oh, no, not that! Oh, no!

WYATT: Wait a minute, boys! Wait a minute!

WYATT: I got a better idea! Just give me fifteen minutes! And I think I can find this Mr ... -

CROWD: Thorndyke! -

WYATT: I'll bring him back here! Now sit down! Take your seats again! Have another beer!

[Crowd Chattering]

IKE CLANTON: Look, Yorick! Can't you give us nothing but them poems?

THORNDYKE: I have a very large repertoire, sir!

IKE: Great! All right, Yorick! Go ahead! Shoot!

Thorndyke uncorks a bottle with his teeth,

spits out the cork,

and takes a long draw.

Thorndyke lays down the bottle

A barfly draws his pistol

and shoots his bottle

[All Laughing]

THORNDYKE: Minstrel, pray help me!

[Piano]

DOC HOLLIDAY: Wait! I wanna hear this!

THORNDYKE: Thank you!

THORNDYKE: To be, or not to be:

THORNDYKE: That is the question! Whether 'tis nobler in the mind! To suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune! Or to take arms against a sea of troubles! And by opposing end them?

THORNDYKE: To die, to sleep,

THORNDYKE: no more.

THORNDYKE: And by a sleep, to say we end the heartaches... and the

THORNDYKE: thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to! 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wish'd! To die,

THORNDYKE: to sleep! To sleep, perchance to dream.

THORNDYKE: Ay, there's the rub! For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come! When we have shuffled off this mortal coil...

IKE: That's enough!

[Shot Glass Shatters]

IKE: You don't know nothin' but them poems!

IKE: You can't sing!

IKE: Maybe you can dance!

DOC: Leave him alone.

DOC: Please go on, Mr Thorndyke! -

THORNDYKE: Thank you, gentleman! -

[Piano Continues]

THORNDYKE: Must give us pause!

THORNDYKE: There's the respect!

THORNDYKE: That makes calamity of so long life!

THORNDYKE: For who would bear the whips and scorns of time!

THORNDYKE: The law's delay, the insolence of office!

THORNDYKE: And the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy take!
THORNDYKE: When he himself might his quietus make! With a bare bodkin?

THORNDYKE: Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat! Under a weary life...

THORNDYKE: ...life!

THORNDYKE: Please, help me, sir!

DOC: But that the dread of something after death!

THORNDYKE: Would you carry on? I'm afraid!

THORNDYKE: It's been so long!

DOC: The undiscover'd country! From whose bourne no traveler returns!
DOC: Puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have...
DOC: than fly to others that we know not of! Thus, conscience does make cowards of us all!

[Coughs]